[rant] I finished reading this a while back...(not by choice) and I have come to the conclusion that I hate it. To me, Romeo and Juliet seem to be very manic depressive, Romeo is a big horndog, and Juliet...well she's manic depressive like I said. I don't see why we use this as some model for perfect love in our society when it's just stupid and they end up commiting suicide...but it is well-written, even if the plot sucks a big one. [/rant]

"I am a libertarian with a small l and a Republican with a capital R. And I am a Republican with a capital R on grounds of expediency, not on principle."-Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

Yeah, there are some reprehensible aspects to the play; but, it is a play. "Romeo and Juliet" is a form of expression, and it demonstrates the talents of the actors.
In other words, it is as dependent on the actors as on the written words. I believe it should be judged on a performance level, rather than on a purely plot/written-word level. Without the actors to give it life, any play will tend to reduce itself to absurdity.

Fiat justitia ruat coelum.

A Progressive is a Socialist who is deathly afraid that someone might call him a Liberal.

I didn't like Shakespeare when I was in high school, either. But the more you read or watch it, the more you understand what's going on, the subtler aspects and conflicts of the characters, in all of the plays. Especially Hamlet. There's always something new you realize every time you watch it.
Romeo and Juliet isn't about perfect love. It's about the extreme intensity of new, young erotic first love that never has a chance to fail or die down and become familiar and routine like the love of a married couple.
Because their love ended in its deepest intensity, Romeo and Juliet gives the impression that their love would be sustained at that level, forever. The possibility that it could, had only they lived, provides the profound tragedy.
HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE THIS PLAY, MAN?

Originally Posted By raven:
I didn't like Shakespeare when I was in high school, either. But the more you read or watch it, the more you understand what's going on, the subtler aspects and conflicts of the characters, in all of the plays. Especially Hamlet. There's always something new you realize every time you watch it.
Romeo and Juliet isn't about perfect love. It's about the extreme intensity of new, young erotic first love that never has a chance to fail or die down and become familiar and routine like the love of a married couple.

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Good perspective, Raven. I couldn't have said it better.

Fiat justitia ruat coelum.

A Progressive is a Socialist who is deathly afraid that someone might call him a Liberal.

It is a tragedy.... think that has something to do with the depression thing????
how good would hte story be if they were happy and up beat and then they both die? They have to be self involved and depressed in order to make the final sene make sense.
it is a great story. and a great play - go see it with talented actors some time and it will make a lot more sense.

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Actually, I kind of liked the modernized movie version. I hated Leo, but the overall concept to set it in modern times, but keep the original Olde English was pretty cool. The soundtrack was so-so.
I can't remember reading it in school, although I know we did the same year we read Beowulf, which I DO remember.

I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming. They don't know I'm only using blanks.

I did not know that we used this as our model of perfect love. I know that their love was apparently so strong that they could not live without eachother, and that is insane, but I don't think it was perfect. If I was in love with a woman I could not be with, then I would move on and find one that I could be with.
Just my .02

I thought all teenagers were manic depressives.
Hamlet is still my favorite play. Raven has it right, once you get used to the language there is a lot of subtlety and humor there. So many of our colloquialisms come from his plays.
Romeo and Juliette isn't one of my favorite either, but try to appreciate it for what it has to offer. Sure they were crazy kids, kinda like someone who would shave thier heads and write things on it just to get a membership to a stupid website.
[:D]

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at yourside, kid.

Thinking of R & J as Elizabethan television puts it into perspective. Some of the plays are analagous to pap like E.R. and some, like the history plays, are more like the old Playhouse 90 or US Steel Hour. Shakespeare's various plays were written at different times to appeal to different audiences, classwise. Romeo seems as if he listened to Fats Domino sing "Yes, it's me and I'm in love again" one too many times.

Originally Posted By BenDover:
Actually, I kind of liked the modernized movie version. I hated Leo, but the overall concept to set it in modern times, but keep the original Olde English was pretty cool. The soundtrack was so-so.
I can't remember reading it in school, although I know we did the same year we read Beowulf, which I DO remember.

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Yes its a must have for the VCR if you dig goth/vampire chicks!!!

Well mounted and doubly well armed: each man has 1 or 2 Colt revolvers besides ordinary pistols, a sword, and every man a rifle. All sorts of coats, blankets, and head-gear, but they are strong athletic fellows. The Mexicans are terribly afraid of them

Originally Posted By Sniper_Wolfe:
[rant] I finished reading this a while back...(not by choice) and I have come to the conclusion that I hate it. To me, Romeo and Juliet seem to be very manic depressive, Romeo is a big horndog, and Juliet...well she's manic depressive like I said. I don't see why we use this as some model for perfect love in our society when it's just stupid and they end up commiting suicide...but it is well-written, even if the plot sucks a big one. [/rant]

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Hehehe. Spent my two years of English in High School in the advanced Honors track. After reading The Scarlet Letter three times in three years (had to do it in eighth grade), and Great Expectations twice......dumping myself back to the regular English track and the Shakespeare it offered was most welcome. And yes, dumping myself back....my teacher didn't appreciate 'I feel no reason to answer these questions since they require an original thought, something the English department doesn't have if it makes kids read the same books each year' as answer to an entire test on the book.
Look at it this way....would it make you all smiles if you met this really hot chick who dug you, only to find out her entire family would like to see you decorated with a toe tag? That your own family would kick the living shit out of you if they knew you had the hots for her? I'll openly admit, I really didn't dig on R&J that much in High School....when I took a Shakspeare class in College, that time around I had a much better appreciation for the story....though I still say nothing beats MacBeth.
Why is it 'perfect love'? Well, there's only one truly 'perfect love', and it doesn't have to do with men and women. But when you look at the lengths Romeo and Juliet went to for their love, and how much they were willing to risk for it....that puts it on a much deeper level than what passes for 'love' today. It's mostly metaphorical, really. They didn't let any outside hangups tarnish their love, or cheapen it, or dissuade it. They remained as true as they were able to.
How about this...try reading Midsummer Night's Dream. Good, lighthearted fun romp.

Originally Posted By Sniper_Wolfe:
I don't see why we use this as some model for perfect love in our society

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Huh? Nobody does that. A model for deep, tragic love, yes, but not at all perfect love.
Now of course you would have to read Shakespeare in the original German to fully appreciate his writings.
Kar"Es war die Nachtigall, und nicht die Lerche!"98

Hey Sniper,
I'm more in your camp. I hated reading Shakespeare in HS and I still don't care to read his work. I never thought that the stories weren't terribly compelling and that the language only served to obscure the narrative. I do respect Shakespeare's command of the English language. His vocabulary was enormous and he could allude to several different meanings, literal and underlying, in a single pair of phrases. I think that's why he is so well regarded and his plays always reveal something new and different to those who appreciate that kind of thing.
-Mike...

Originally Posted By raven:
The Scarlet Letter is great too. But Moby Dick's my fave [:D]

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When my High School English teacher announced that we would be reading Moby Dick, I called out in my best "boxing ring announcer voice":
"Moby Dick - The Caucasian Cetacean!!!"
Good for the rest of the day off. [:D]

these "great Shakespearean works" were written for the masses and are an ancient equivalent of shows like Sally Jessie Raphielle. think about it, behind the flowery rhetoric are some very repugnant characters and if you put say, Hamlet's family on The Sally show in an interview they would fit in between "mom's that take their daughters to bars to pick up guys" and "Lesbian Nazi hookers that give birth to alien babies".

But what about MacBeth?
My senior year, we read MacBeth, and were assigned to pair up and act out a scene. My best buddy and I were in the same class, so we chose the confrontation between MacDuff and MacBeth. We made fake swords and fought it out!

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'[/qoute]

Fray: a usually disorderly or protracted fight, struggle, or disputeAdjacent: not distant, immediately preceding or following

I think alot of drama back then had to be much larger than life and exagerrated to be bring in the crowds. All the dialog was written so it could be spoken loudly so that even the cheap seats could hear it. It sounds cheesy when taken out of context. I saw Armin Shimmerman (Quark, from DS9) at a convention and he said the large open sets used on the Trek series required actors to speak loudly and Shakespearean acting help him get his role. I bet the same goes for Patrick Stewart.
Edited for correct spelling of a name.

Actually, I think R&J is my favorite of W.S. plays. I'm with the Hun in that I really don't get much out of the sonnets. In my Jr. english class we spent two and a half weeks dissecting that play verse by verse and it really gave me a great appreciation for the story. Since, I've seen it performed live in German (in Germany, most of which I didn't understand)and both the 1960's and the Baz Luhrman version in the theater. My favorite is the newest with Claire and Leo.
Believe me, it nothing to do with the guns.......Honest.

"Here's to gunpowder and pussy; live by one, die by the other, love the smell of both."

Originally Posted By BenDover:
Actually, I kind of liked the modernized movie version. I hated Leo, but the overall concept to set it in modern times, but keep the original Olde English was pretty cool. The soundtrack was so-so.
I can't remember reading it in school, although I know we did the same year we read Beowulf, which I DO remember.

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Elizabethan English IS MODERN ENGLISH. The period of Shakespeare was the time when our language was finally standardized in many ways. It continues to evolve, but Elizabethan English is understandable to most people without much effort.
Philologists also credit William Shakespeare as having invented roughly 25% of the English language himself, generating new word, phrases, expressions, etc. out of whole cloth. (At least there is no record of their existence prior to Shakespeare). That is a tremendous accomplishment.
Chaucer wrote in Middle English. Middle English is difficult for most people to understand without extensive crib-sheets and a dictionary, and is difficult to speak as it is a mixture of spoken traditions including old french, anglo-saxon, and probably some Brythonic sounds.
Beowulf was originally written in Old English. Old English is not understandable to modern readers, it is, essentially, a foreign language. Beowulf was extensively translated into middle english by monks of the time, and then subsequently into modern english. J.R.R. Tolkien published one of the better respected translations direct from Old English.

Originally Posted By Sniper_Wolfe:
[rant] I finished reading this a while back...(not by choice) and I have come to the conclusion that I hate it. To me, Romeo and Juliet seem to be very manic depressive, Romeo is a big horndog, and Juliet...well she's manic depressive like I said. I don't see why we use this as some model for perfect love in our society when it's just stupid and they end up commiting suicide...but it is well-written, even if the plot sucks a big one. [/rant]

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Hehehe. Spent my two years of English in High School in the advanced Honors track. After reading The Scarlet Letter three times in three years (had to do it in eighth grade), and Great Expectations twice......dumping myself back to the regular English track and the Shakespeare it offered was most welcome. And yes, dumping myself back....my teacher didn't appreciate 'I feel no reason to answer these questions since they require an original thought, something the English department doesn't have if it makes kids read the same books each year' as answer to an entire test on the book.
Look at it this way....would it make you all smiles if you met this really hot chick who dug you, only to find out her entire family would like to see you decorated with a toe tag? That your own family would kick the living shit out of you if they knew you had the hots for her? I'll openly admit, I really didn't dig on R&J that much in High School....when I took a Shakspeare class in College, that time around I had a much better appreciation for the story....though I still say nothing beats MacBeth.
Why is it 'perfect love'? Well, there's only one truly 'perfect love', and it doesn't have to do with men and women. But when you look at the lengths Romeo and Juliet went to for their love, and how much they were willing to risk for it....that puts it on a much deeper level than what passes for 'love' today. It's mostly metaphorical, really. They didn't let any outside hangups tarnish their love, or cheapen it, or dissuade it. They remained as true as they were able to.
How about this...try reading Midsummer Night's Dream. Good, lighthearted fun romp.

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Hahaha I've been in the "honors track" for three years now, and every minute of it has sucked, yes it has been challenging but I really haven't learned that much. Last year I was stuck with a teacher FRESH out of college. She knew NOTHING about teaching and made up for it by assigning huge papers with ridiculous deadlines. She also made it a point to make us read Sylvia Plath constantly. You know Sylvia the psychotic bitch that eventually commits suicide after having sexual feelings for her father all her life? The same college girl also felt that since we lived in SE Ohio that we were sheltered, even though she knows nothing about the area. She just felt we were sheltered because there are only 3 African Americans in our entire school. She also said "Since you guys are so sheltered...." and assigned us read Things Fall Apart (a book about how Caucasians destroyed the African's way of life through Christianity, had some good plots though), it was a good book, but it was a pretty dumb reason to assign a book. Well this year I have a much better, more experienced teacher, but the literature hasn't gotten any better. We had to read The Scarlet Letter over summer vacation to prepare for the class, we also had to write a one page summary on every single chapter [:(]. It sucked but with the help of Sparknotes.com and some other resources I got a decent score on my journal. Well now we are reading The Great Gatsby which seems a little more promising. Oh we have read one pretty good book, The Red Badge of Courage. A great read for any of you civil war buffs, just shows how a young man felt going into the war and the internal conflicts with the reality of war.
Back to the point, I think anything by Shakespeare is a pretty good read but I think that "Modern Day" rendition of Romeo and Juliet was a joke. I gun handling skills also unnerved me.

When I was in college, we had a Shakespearean expert speak on the topic. The guy was actually an actor who starred as the Mad Scientist living in a castle in a rarer episode of Gilligan's Island. Apparently, this guy is a world-reknowned expert in Shakespear.
His statement was, "So many uninformed people take Shakespear so seriously when in reality, he was the Benny Hill of his day."

I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming. They don't know I'm only using blanks.

"Friends, Americans, minutemen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury this thread, not to praise it.
The evil that men type lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with this thread..."

As for the 'love' surviving challenge blah blah: I'd have to side with Friar Laurence here. Romeo definitely chases women around rather than loving them. This is the same idea Friar Laurence presented when Romeo asked to be married to Juliet, because he believed that it was Rosaline to which he wished to be married. Because Juliet was a Capulet and this might end the feud, he agreed to marry them. Not because he believed they were in love.
As for Leo's rendition: [puke]. I have enough respect for, as someone said, Shakespeare's mastery of the English language (NOT his storyline in R&J) not to demean it to this level. The gun handling skills were, as Elad mentioned, horrendous. Mercutio's cross-dressing was also an insult, even though he was an extrovert in his play and some might argue that Mercutio is to then as a cross-dressing maniac (Mercutio in the movie) is to now.
I am currently on the "honors English track" but all I've gotten out of it is that Shakespeare has a low expectation for love, and occasionally has a good joke (not his plays on words, for a good example please refer to the nurse's husband's joke about asking Juliet if when she is older "will thoust fall upon thy back?" Pretty clever and well, funny for that time, if you ask me.)
So, to wrap up: Yes, I realize/appreciate his mastery of the English language. No, I still don't like R&J, because they don't seem 'in love' they just seem stupid and manic depressive, and Romeo just seems to be a horny guy wanting a nice young girl (keep in mind he'd be considerably older than her, which was ok then and I'm not criticizing that). What I consider this play is nothing more than a 'see what happens when you're manic depressive' infomercial...you know, this is you (you) and this is manic depressive you (Romeo/Juliet). And no, I don't like the Leo movie, it is an insult to the last bastion of my respect for Shakespeare (his writing vocabulary and mechanics).

"I am a libertarian with a small l and a Republican with a capital R. And I am a Republican with a capital R on grounds of expediency, not on principle."-Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist